dimanche 25 Jul 2010, 15h51m

Tue 20 Jul – Vans Warped Tour 2010

I hadn't been to a Warped Tour for a couple years so it was interesting to see what music had become fashionable among teenagers. Two or three years ago all these high school kids were going to see pop-punk and emo bands like The Academy Is... and Coheed and Cambria. It was quite a surprise for me to see that the most hip music these days is a fusion of death metal/screamo/electronica (sometimes featuring dubstep, recently ever-present in all corners of our musical culture). Bands such as Attack Attack, Bring Me the Horizon, and my personal favorite for the day, Iwresteledabearonce brought together massive violent moshing crowds that overshadowed the tour's supposed headliners', such as Reel Big Fish, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Alkaline Trio.

The most boggling experience for me that day was the pop-punk/metal band Four Year Strong, which was fronted by tough looking big bearded men covered in tattoos emitting wimpy emo choruses equivalent to that of Cartel. Even the true headliner for the day Sum 41 felt necessary to join in the day's hardcore festivities, throwing in a speed-metal aside after their ten-year-ago radio classics, and doing a brief cover of Metallica's "Master of Puppets." "You guys really want to hear the heavy stuff, eh?" Deryck Whibley asked fans stuffed to the edges of the orchestra pit with mosh circles 30 feet in diameter.

The rest of the Warped Tour featured traditions that have remained the same for years: countless artist tents in which you could accidentally encounter your favorite musician while buying a shirt, a gated area giving away free Monster Energy drinks (curiously loaded with nitrous oxide), Riverboat Gamblers on the side stage offering humorous banter in between songs, a slip n slide, and countless shirtless teens with "Free Hugs!" painted on their stomachs (hilariously countered by several other teens with shirts exclaiming "Fuck your free hugs!")